I am an emotional mess. They get the best of me. But over time I've learned to love my emotions, especially when I give them to God and I share them because they lead my train of thinking deeper into Him and His vision. My night began with me crying out to God about a dream lost and God lead me to a dream yet,but about to be, found. A dream I had cried over before and had therefore I resolved myself to wait in patience until the time would come that this dream for traveling to beautiful places would become real.
I am praying about going to Brazil this summer for 3 months. I have contacted a group in Fortaleza. Although I have felt at peace to join this group for about a week now, I asked God why, why this group?
I have never been to Fortaleza or learned much about it. I don't know if it's anything compared to its rival cities, Rio de Janiero or Sao Paulo. I've dreamt about these places for the last year but not just the cities themselves, in all their grandeur and tropical prestige that line the blue oceans where the wealthy flock. I dream of their majestic and rebellious favelas.
What a vision to see these shanty towns in all their colors,shapes, and sizes, stacked one on top of the other. It's as if I were to explore a real life masterpiece; a poor man's Sistine Chapel, made up of cardboard boxes and scraps of metal, that serve as a refuge and a resting place for the weary. Built with hands that didn't understand how to construct a home in the first place but now it's where family is raised and dramas unfold. I've created these slums into somewhat of a dysfunctional fairytale in my mind. Where culture is born, music fills the beat of the day, children play hide and seek around corners and in stray allies and where today is all one gets. Today---a challenge I have yet to accomplish in a future driven country. Not only do I believe these communities to be majestic but I find favelas comical. In my vision (of future me in Brazil), I look up and see a tangle of telephone and internet lines running through the skies connecting one shack to another. Each line is pulled from here and there and you don't know where they begin and where they end; like traffic in a great city that runs a muck yet somehow, some way, information and connections get to where they were going. I try my best to be as resourceful as I can and so I applaud such a trait, even if it is illegal.
A favela's beauty was born from the mess, holding people who own little to nothing. Whom struggle to be functional human beings in a society that makes the odds against them quite substantial, even dangerous, yet they wake up and seize the day with an energy very unique to these regions and the people within.
My heart for them, is to show them that they don't have to survive. That in no way am I glorifying their conditions or saying their life is easy because it's most definitely not. I long to see them have some of the same opportunities that I had growing up. To see them be able to read a book or a story; I want to see their eyes light up and feel their hearts race when they've finished a tale that mirrors their own. The opportunity to develop their leadership, that only they can provide for this world that so desperately needs it. For children who need more laughter because you can never have too much and God knows that I long to laugh with them. To show them that the world is at their fingertips because Christ made that possible on Calvary hill, in a city thousands of miles away from them. To reveal that sacred moment of sacrifice and love that seeks to capture them and save their lives eternally. To know that I can do none of this if I don't show them honest, pure Love, is such a sweet challenge I wish to adhere too. If that means holding uncleaned bodies, kissing muddy faces and holding broken hands, than I couldn't ask for anything better to do with my time.
I'm a junky for broken. Not so I can fix them but so I can walk with them. I know that God is near to the broken and his glory comes in their redemption. I come from broken and I wouldn't ever change that because God's ruined my life for love through it all.
Nevertheless, I leave you with an unfinished thought because I don't know Brazil or its people. Not intimately at least. I know the land by books, others experiences and through my own daydreams. One day this country will be tangible to me and then I'll let you in on a dream come true. Until then I pray one thing for not only these people but for a world that I am so terribly fascinated by...
When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Holy Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
-Ephesians 3
I am praying about going to Brazil this summer for 3 months. I have contacted a group in Fortaleza. Although I have felt at peace to join this group for about a week now, I asked God why, why this group?
I have never been to Fortaleza or learned much about it. I don't know if it's anything compared to its rival cities, Rio de Janiero or Sao Paulo. I've dreamt about these places for the last year but not just the cities themselves, in all their grandeur and tropical prestige that line the blue oceans where the wealthy flock. I dream of their majestic and rebellious favelas.
A favela's beauty was born from the mess, holding people who own little to nothing. Whom struggle to be functional human beings in a society that makes the odds against them quite substantial, even dangerous, yet they wake up and seize the day with an energy very unique to these regions and the people within.
My heart for them, is to show them that they don't have to survive. That in no way am I glorifying their conditions or saying their life is easy because it's most definitely not. I long to see them have some of the same opportunities that I had growing up. To see them be able to read a book or a story; I want to see their eyes light up and feel their hearts race when they've finished a tale that mirrors their own. The opportunity to develop their leadership, that only they can provide for this world that so desperately needs it. For children who need more laughter because you can never have too much and God knows that I long to laugh with them. To show them that the world is at their fingertips because Christ made that possible on Calvary hill, in a city thousands of miles away from them. To reveal that sacred moment of sacrifice and love that seeks to capture them and save their lives eternally. To know that I can do none of this if I don't show them honest, pure Love, is such a sweet challenge I wish to adhere too. If that means holding uncleaned bodies, kissing muddy faces and holding broken hands, than I couldn't ask for anything better to do with my time.
Nevertheless, I leave you with an unfinished thought because I don't know Brazil or its people. Not intimately at least. I know the land by books, others experiences and through my own daydreams. One day this country will be tangible to me and then I'll let you in on a dream come true. Until then I pray one thing for not only these people but for a world that I am so terribly fascinated by...
When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Holy Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
-Ephesians 3
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